Two Room Redo and a Hot Tub

This winter we finally pulled the trigger on fixing up the rooms upstairs. It started after we finally got the attic and Lily's room finished, and before we moved June's stuff into the room.  I said to Jared, "Hey, how about before we move June's crib out of our closet, we fix the room up, it will be a quick, one-weekend job."  Of course, it turned into a much bigger job.

It started by stripping the fly fishing wallpaper.  As Jared pulled it off, a lot of the plaster was crumbing and there were big cracks, so he needed to do a lot of repair and re-texture the walls and ceiling.  He also spent a lot of time stripping and sanding the window, which was painted dark, dark green and was really lumpy from the many different layers of semi-peeled paint.  It really brought the details back out of the woodwork.  He did a lot of repair on the closet drywall and wood trim because the closet had only been roughed-in and he put in a new chair rail.  We also put in a pretty light.

After he was done with the walls and ceiling, I painted the unfinished bead board with milk paint, which gave it a cool, old-timey feel and finished it with a wax.

I painted the slide bed (which we'd bought at a yard sale about a year ago) with chalk paint.  The whole time we worked we both listened to a World War 1 podcast series and I became completely obsessed with it.  It was a fun time and I love the way it turned out (the room, not WWI).

We moved Annie's stuff in but she doesn't want to sleep in there yet.  She likes sleeping with Lily, and I think June will have a hard time sleeping with her in there, so for now, she can sleep wherever she wants.

After we were done with that, we loved how it turned out so much, we decided to just move right on into our bedroom.  It didn't seem right for our kids to have great bedrooms while we still sleep in a dark, hole of misery and peeling wallpaper which was our bedroom.

It was a struggle.  Here it is half way through.

We ran into the same issues that we did in the other room, but in one big section the plaster was pulling away from the lath, which caused some problems.  Jared had to drill a gazillion holes and fill them with adhesive.

We went with a really light off-white paint.  It feels so much brighter, cleaner and bigger.  We also did our closet at the same time.

We got a chandelier, it's beautiful and fancy.

Jared really focused on the window, with days of stripping paint and sanding.  It is really beautiful.

I recovered the headboard, sewed pillows, and re-upholstered a bench.  We bought new bedding which is the softest in the whole world.

We have a cozy little nest, and it's probably my favorite house project so far.  It's not like it's all that special, but it just makes me significantly happier, or I guess, it doesn't make me sad anymore.

In the winter our house is ridiculously cold.  Seriously, it's frigid.  I'm cold all winter and I hate it.  In February I was angry about it and also very sore from starting to run again.  Jared's been proposing a hot tub for years and I finally gave in when we found a good deal on a used one.  Here is everyone getting the pad ready.

We were in it every night for the first couple months.  The kids like it, too, although it's too hot for Junie.

Jared made a pretty brick pathway to it and we did some landscaping.

While writing this post, I scrolled through the old pictures (including the house listing) looking for good "before's".  It's so interesting how much it's changed. Every time we change something I feel a responsibility to the people who've owned it before and especially to whoever will come after us. It feels like it's been here forever, but at the same time it's always changing. It's fun having an old house.